never with any share in the government of the holy city. But, in order to ensure the noble simplicity demanded by such a supremacy, his annual income is only fivefold that of the ordinary priests, exclusive of the expenses incident to the administration of the central budget. assistants. The vastness of his office makes it necessary for the Pontiff His seven of the West to call habitually to his aid seven national superiors, each with a salary the half of his, over and above his necessary expenses. Four are allotted, one to each province, to Italy, Spain, Great Britain, and Germany, which will always remain distinct by their history, if not in language, after the normal disgregation of the actual nationalities. The three others are reserved for the colonial settlements of the West, no assistant being named for France, to which the High-Priest, as in direct contact, can pay sufficient attention. ultimately But the number will naturally be increased in proportion as The number the Positive religion advances towards its normal state of univer- forty-nine. sality. This eminent branch of the priesthood will, then, furnish forty-nine members when mankind is completely regenerated. Besides their ordinary duty, on them it will devolve, on the death or retirement of the Pontiff, to influence or correct the choice he will have freely made of his successor, with regard to whom they will consult, if need be, the whole of the senior members of the colleges within their respective jurisdiction. the Priest. As for the dress of the priesthood, in public or private, The dress of imitating the judicious reserve of the founders of Catholicism and Islam, I prefer to adjourn a determination which if it is to be effective, must be completely spontaneous. We may be confident, however, that, from the definiteness of Positivism as compared with any form of Theologism, the appropriate modifications in dress will be of more rapid introduction. The form of its clothing will remind people, that the priesthood, by its true position intermediate between the sexes, has more affinity with the female sex; and the colour will show that it speaks in the name of the past, in the interest of the future. Whilst disorganising costume, the anarchy of modern times has instinctively respected the distinction of the sexes, and therein lies the germ of discipline for the less strongly marked cases. The reorganisation of costume should naturally begin with the clergy, as, in its social character, more homogeneous and better defined than the patriciate or the proletariate. Spiritual concentra tion. The depend cendancy of the Priest hood. It is in virtue of its eminently synthetical nature that the spiritual power allows, nay, even requires the plenitude of centralisation just described. Since the priestly function is essentially one and the same for all priests, it might, as in the beginning, so for ever, be discharged by one single person, provided that he could make himself felt everywhere. The plurality of organs in the spiritualty being, if closely examined, solely to compensate the deficiency due to the vast extension of the service, they should be in such subordination to their head that their class image forth the unity entrusted to his charge. He is the priesthood, and, at need, could change all its members, leaving the spiritual organism intact. The Papacy, at all times hampered by the college of cardinals, and often liable to Councils, was never able to attain the ascendancy which will be allowed the Pontificate of Humanity, as a natural consequence of the ripeness of things for the separation of the two powers. In order to consolidate the concentration which is natural ence and as to the sociocratic clergy, the individuality of its members, whilst more strongly marked than that in the theocratic priesthood, must be limited to the requirements of personal dignity, of fair emulation, and above all of a just responsibility. Renouncing power in every shape, renouncing even wealth, the priests of Humanity are not exposed to the great causes of disagreement. Their function is to direct opinion; they therefore shun command, the better to give effect to the powers of conviction and persuasion. Devoting himself to the supreme interpreter of the Great Being, each priest feels that he shares in the most extensive power, a power before which all temporal greatness sinks into the shade, for that is the attribute of the class which bends the wills of men without regulating them. The modest income on which the priests depend for subsistence is always subject to the will of the very chiefs whom they have to discipline, and whose capricious action will often leave them no resource but the voluntary contributions of sincere believers. Nothing, however, can deprive the Positive clergy of its incomparable privilege, that of representing to the actual generation the two subjective portions of Humanity. The noble contrast the priesthood thus presents between dependence and ascendancy is most pronounced in the case of the High-Priest, for he, a simple citizen of the metropolis of man, with a salary inferior to the income of the poorest banker, yet exercises by free assent an universal influence. With the object of completing the purifying process begun in the renunciation of all inheritance, it is essential that the priests of Humanity forego any profit to themselves derivable from their labours. All intellectual services should be public and gratuitous. It is incumbent on the contemplative class to offer the others the constant example of a wise moderation in the use of speech, writing, and above all of the press, so greatly abused during the period of anarchy. The greater part of the ideas of everyday application are to be transmitted by tradition, by practice, and in silence, books being reserved: for the communication of any real advance in our abstract and general conceptions. Still, all allowance made for its. habitual duties, the priesthood of Sociocracy will unavoidably write more than the clergy of the Theocracy. But the cost of printing the works thus produced is met by the pontifical treasury; their distribution being left to the authors, whose name is to be given in all cases, and who are under a solemn obligation never to sell them. The promise to this effect, exacted from the priest at his consecration, and renewed on each publication, is so essential to the dignity of the clergy, that the High-Priest will revoke the priest who shall have thrice broken it, accepting him however as a pensioner, if he has sufficient intellectual value. The rule must apply further to all their teaching, be it in order to prevent the degradation of the theoretic class, be it in order to save the children of the wealthy from private instruction, which a foolish pride leads the rich to substitute for public. The public teaching ought always to suffice, allowing for the explanation which, exceptionally, each priest will give gratuitously to the pupils he shall judge worthy of special attention. Private teaching, fallen into the hands of theoricians who have failed of admission into the priesthood, even as pensioners, will be so discredited as to be no disturbance of the systematic instruction. It is the more important to secure this result, as we have no other protection for the official teaching under a regime which will always keep spiritual discipline clear of all oppressive temporal action. Whilst the state furnishes the priesthood the means for giving instruction to the full extent to all, it must Educational Function of the Priesthood. The object of the Posi tion. Complete preparatory twenty-eight years. abstain from throwing difficulties in the way either of individuals or societies if they wish to enter into legitimate competition with the public schools. Persistent however as must be our respect for liberty in teaching, such liberty will exist in principle rather than in practice, unless the regular teaching become altogether degenerate, a condition of things which the spiritual head of Humanity may guard against or remedy by remodelling at need his whole clergy. Such are the introductory observations I was bound to offer here on the special constitution of the Positive priesthood. They will be complemented in the natural course of things as I explain its regular intervention throughout the regime. But without this introduction to the whole, the several particulars could not have the requisite precision and clearness. The next point to examine is the principal function of the Positivist clergy, and for this I delineate the education which it reduces to a system. The essential outlines of this exposition were given in the General View,' so that all that is here required is to complete, coordinate, and above all to summarise it, with such minor corrections as have been from time to time, not unnaturally, suggested by the course of the present work. Positive education founds the true unity, by teaching us to live for others. Its aim being to fit us for the unintermitting service of Humanity, it remains above all moral, even when most intellectual in character. Based on the innate existence of the sympathetic instincts, it subjects to them the personal instincts, during the period of life in which the natural predominance of these latter is very largely kept in check, owing to the providential interposition which frees us from the necessity of acting. This educational preparation, continuing till twenty-one, is period. divided into two parts, the one private, the other public, the point of separation being the age of puberty-at fourteen. The first part has for its object the cultivation of the affections, the second that of faith; the first under the superintendence of the mother, the second under that of the priest; the two together issue in a period of free action during a complementary period of seven years. Twenty-eight years, then, are allotted to the training of the individual, and the beginning, two principal phases, and close, are distinctly marked in the four first sacra ments, in which the child of the Great Being gradually passes into the servant. proper twenty-one Wider sense of the term. That servant is by marriage directly consecrated to social Education existence; and then enters on a last period of fourteen years, limited to during which the exercise of his activity as a citizen is needed years. to complete his preparatory life. As, however, both this last and even the preceding phase are periods of full liberty, I would not include them under education properly so called, as that always implies a state of tutelage. An additional reason for excluding them is their being confined to the active sex, whereas the first half of our preparatory life is common to both sexes. It is the combination of these two characteristics, universality and minority, that must fix the sense of an illdefined term, which in its widest acceptation may embrace the whole of our objective life, considered as a course of preparation for our subjective existence. In this last sense its use is proper only in the work already promised; there education will be the name for every preparation under the guidance, first, of the Family, then, of the Country, lastly, of Humanity. Restricting the term here to its more usual acceptation, I have, in the first place, to explain the private phase of Education. The second dentition divides it into two equal portions; the one essentially affective; th second that in which begins the cultivation of the intellect, under the direction of the mother, through esthetic studies. Hence the subdivision of the whole of education, properly so called, into three septennial periods, the distinction between which, clearly indicated in all the Western languages, is most strongly marked in Spanish, in the names Nino, Muchacho, and Mozo, with their derivatives. The first of these periods must be held the most decisive, since then it is that the mother's discipline lays so firm a foundation of morality that the rest of life is seldom able to affect it. Then it is that, sheltered from the egoism of action, the three sympathetic instincts grow beyond recall, more particularly veneration, but also benevolence, for which, even in this dependent state, there is a sufficient sphere. From the moment of birth, all worship during this period is condensed in the adoration of the mother, the only Providence which infancy can or ought to recognise. The consciousness of the Great Being, however, comes instinctively as soon as language begins, for its transmission by the mother is an indication of its social origin, The private period of proper. septennial The first period the sive. Moral Worship of most deci training. the Mother. |